Game Jam Postmortems #3 - Defend the Jam
Game Jolt's Bear Jam 2017 was a game jam with a bear theme. I really enjoyed this one because I worked on a team of 3 this time. Our entry, Defend the Jam, is a game about a lumberjack and an archer trying to defend a jar of jam from hungry conniving bears.
Working with a team for the first time
This was my first time working on a team so the dynamics in game development were a lot different than when I was working solo. Since my other team members were focusing on the artwork and music, I had a lot more time to focus on the code. Me and the artist Nicogollin, worked on the game design and concept. Trmofmusic focused solely on the music. All in all, it was beautiful watching an idea that we constantly worked on in a week reach fruition.
I definitely think the artwork is a lot better than I could have done. I also appreciated the visual design of my third game jam game compared to the others. This game has a pause menu, a choose your own class screen, and story presented in slide show format.
The music is awesome in my opinion. It really adds to the overall feel of the game. I even had people who I asked to play give me good feed back on the music.
Working with a team has definitely humbled me. I usually take a lone ranger approach to many things, but this made me realize that if I want to make the kind of game that I envision (usually small in scope), then I'll need other team members to fill other roles. I won't stop investing time into bettering my art, sound/music/, programming, and game design but it's definitely nice to have someone to pick one or more of these areas especially if they are more skilled at it than me. Kudos to my team mates!
Challenges and what I wanted to add
Making a game in a week is challenging in itself and we were definitely working on this game until the very end. I wish I had more time to fully flesh out the waves and balance more things. There could also be more additions to spice up the game play. I think at a future time it is possible that we may revisit this game and provide an update or another edition.
One of the things I wanted to add was more character progression. The character levels, but it doesn't really affect too much other than a slight boost in stats. I also think the special attacks could have used more work. There was also a button that we didn't implement in the pause menu. Last but not least, I would have liked a shorter wave cycle so that more players could get to the end boss. I spent a great deal of time implementing the attacks for a final boss that most people won't see.
Overall
I loved working on a team and look forward to doing it in the near future. I still will do some game jams solo as I do enjoy as a hobbyist creating the art, music/sound, game concept, and code. Feel free to play Defend the Jam if you're interested with a keyboard or controller.